Recently one of your fellow students, Khalid, and I had an exchange I thought you might learn from, so I decided to highlight it here rather than leaving it buried in class list, where it might go unnoticed.
First, you should know the exchange deals with Khalid's analysis of the speech he gave at the funeral of his daughter's half-sister, Leila, who was only seven when she died, so the situation being described is quite personal. However, at some points in your life, you will be either the author or the audience in similar situations, and getting a handle on how this common but very complicated genre of writing and communication does its work is one of the reasons you are taking a class like freshman writing.
Khalid's speech, called a eulogy, was particularly effective, and figuring out why should give you some important insights into how logos, ethos, and pathos can work together to produce a greater effect and greater good than they can accomplish individually. This rhetorical situation will also show you how author and audience and the occasion which brings them together can sometimes come together to create a space which helps everyone involved. The resulting rhetorical analysis can show you how getting enough distance to analyze and then making your private insights public helps your community. Finally, since this was a very private moment Khalid agreed to share, I want to thank him, and I hope in a very, very small way, he accepts your learning as a tribute and a part of the legacy of Leila.
Here is Khalid's exemplary description of the message and analysis of the rhetorical situation:
Author: Myself
Audience: Family and Friends
This past Saturday was the funeral of my daughters half-sister Leila. Leila was only 7 weeks old. I was asked to say a few words to the audience about Leila. I started out by thanking everyone for coming and how much Leila's mother enjoyed the turnout. I explained to them that Leila was like my second daughter and because of that i naturally compared her to my daughter Kyra. Kyra is 3 and a half years old. I told them that when Kyra was born i didn't have much, money was tight so i wasn't able to document the birth as much as i would have liked. In a somewhat soft tone, i excitedly told them that when it was time for Leila to be born i had every top notch piece of technology available to document the event and in a playful, but respectful manner i re-enacted how i had filmed Leila right after her birth. I guess you could call it a light comedic performance. The audience seemed to really enjoy my reflections on Leila's life. This was confirmed by the smiles on their faces.
I believe the author's purpose was to present the subject in a joyful manner, while not mourning her loss, but rather celebrating her unfortunately short life.
The author appealed to the audience by being genuine, and this was proven by his example of the Leila when she was first born.
While hard to use Logos in a situation where feelings and opinions are more present then facts, I believe the love and care shared by the audience and author for the child was logos.
Pathos was demonstrated in the way the author decided to "re-enact" the filming of the minutes after Leila's birth. I also believe that thanking the audience for coming was also another example of Pathos. The fact that the audience was smiling or better yet, feeling more cheerful at the end was proof enough for the author that he connected with them emotionally.
Ethos was demonstrated when the author stated that he had little money at the time of his daughters birth. Money problems are universal. A problem that most people face at least once in their life. I believe that by doing this he not only placed himself in the shoes of the audience, but the audience could immediately identify with his situation and the eagerness to do better the next time around.
In my opinion the author's message was successful. The audience seemed touched and reacted in the way the author had intended.
Some of the audience members may not have children and this "noise" may have kept them from fully understanding the depth in which it is to love a child, much less lose one.
Here's my slightly edited response:
Khalid,
Let me begin by expressing my sorrow at your loss. It is always sad
when you lose someone close; it is even worse when you lose someone so
young, with all of their life before them.
I find it remarkable you are able to get so much distance between
yourself and so private a moment, and you've done an excellent job
with your analysis. Aristotle was among the first to write about
rhetoric [find a Wikipedia artical on Aristotle's contribution to the study of Rhetoric here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhetoric_(Aristotle)], and he created a special category for situations like yours
where you celebrate the exceptional life and hold it up as an example
for others. It was very like Aristotle to look at death and loss as a
chance for the speaker and audience to do public good.
What I like about your eulogy--what the kind of speech you did is
called--is that you focused on your audience and their need to find
joy in a joyful life. One reason you were so successful is that your
comedic performance touched on moments in almost everyone's life, that
is, the shared experience of recording the joy we share in major
events. What most people don't realize is how full of pathos these
moments, like Thanksgiving, are. Not only are you full of happiness,
on some level, one also realizes how fleeting such moments are. We
take pictures to have a symbol to remind us and bring back such
happiness. In short, you made a perfect choice of topic for your
audience. You brought ethos to your topic by being Kyra's father and demonstrating how closely you held the relationship with Leila. Since
part of ethos, that is, your credibility, deals with your audience
being able to relate to you, your actions, and your feelings and being
able to see themselves in you, both your situation and your
presentation of it resonated with your audience.
Artistotle also wrote about the notion of catharsis, that is, watching
another perform, identifying with the performer, and then getting to
feel because the performer feels. Catharsis is one reason we enjoy
football games, movies which make you laugh or cry, comedy, and drama. Catharsis happens most readily when your audience wants to feel with you and get their emotions to the surface, and it's one major way that ethos and pathos work together to make the sum of their appeals more than their parts. The message you constructed, your ethos, and the pathos inherent in the situation all combined to do with a good eulogy should: get the
audience to purge their own grief, get the audience to reflect on
their own lives, bring the community together for mutual support in a
time of great stress, and do it all by reflecting on the life you come
together to celebrate.
Finally, I don't want you to underestimate the value of logos in your
situation. There is a logic to how and why people feel, and you
tapped into this logic. You did it by presenting information from
your own life to which people could relate. Anytime you use
communication to express emotion, you have to place the emotions in a
context of words and make them more abstract and logical than emotions
ever are without the context of words. Such acts of putting how you feel into words helps you make sense out of such high emotions as
the loss of someone whom you had come to regard as a daughter; but, equally important, your having to frame how you feel provides a logical framework your audience can use to make sense out of the situation for themselves. This is one of the most powerful uses for logos, and it's one reason we tell stories about our lives, that is, to help us better understand them by putting into words.
Whenever my students go to a funeral, I tell them two things: 1)
create situations where you and others can tell stories about the life
and the loss; and, 2) remember to touch base with those at the funeral
in the weeks and months to come. So often, folks see the funeral as
a ritual which allows the community to move beyond loss and grief, but grief doesn't end as you walk away from a grave; it is only beginning. It is wonderful to have friends and family around during those the first days and week after a loss, but it's more important to be there over the next weeks and months.
With your permission, I'd like to post your analysis on the class blog
along with my response, both because it is an excellent example of a
well done analysis and because it provides a teaching opportunity to
present how the genre of the eulogy works.
Steve
First, you should know the exchange deals with Khalid's analysis of the speech he gave at the funeral of his daughter's half-sister, Leila, who was only seven when she died, so the situation being described is quite personal. However, at some points in your life, you will be either the author or the audience in similar situations, and getting a handle on how this common but very complicated genre of writing and communication does its work is one of the reasons you are taking a class like freshman writing.
Khalid's speech, called a eulogy, was particularly effective, and figuring out why should give you some important insights into how logos, ethos, and pathos can work together to produce a greater effect and greater good than they can accomplish individually. This rhetorical situation will also show you how author and audience and the occasion which brings them together can sometimes come together to create a space which helps everyone involved. The resulting rhetorical analysis can show you how getting enough distance to analyze and then making your private insights public helps your community. Finally, since this was a very private moment Khalid agreed to share, I want to thank him, and I hope in a very, very small way, he accepts your learning as a tribute and a part of the legacy of Leila.
Here is Khalid's exemplary description of the message and analysis of the rhetorical situation:
Author: Myself
Audience: Family and Friends
This past Saturday was the funeral of my daughters half-sister Leila. Leila was only 7 weeks old. I was asked to say a few words to the audience about Leila. I started out by thanking everyone for coming and how much Leila's mother enjoyed the turnout. I explained to them that Leila was like my second daughter and because of that i naturally compared her to my daughter Kyra. Kyra is 3 and a half years old. I told them that when Kyra was born i didn't have much, money was tight so i wasn't able to document the birth as much as i would have liked. In a somewhat soft tone, i excitedly told them that when it was time for Leila to be born i had every top notch piece of technology available to document the event and in a playful, but respectful manner i re-enacted how i had filmed Leila right after her birth. I guess you could call it a light comedic performance. The audience seemed to really enjoy my reflections on Leila's life. This was confirmed by the smiles on their faces.
I believe the author's purpose was to present the subject in a joyful manner, while not mourning her loss, but rather celebrating her unfortunately short life.
The author appealed to the audience by being genuine, and this was proven by his example of the Leila when she was first born.
While hard to use Logos in a situation where feelings and opinions are more present then facts, I believe the love and care shared by the audience and author for the child was logos.
Pathos was demonstrated in the way the author decided to "re-enact" the filming of the minutes after Leila's birth. I also believe that thanking the audience for coming was also another example of Pathos. The fact that the audience was smiling or better yet, feeling more cheerful at the end was proof enough for the author that he connected with them emotionally.
Ethos was demonstrated when the author stated that he had little money at the time of his daughters birth. Money problems are universal. A problem that most people face at least once in their life. I believe that by doing this he not only placed himself in the shoes of the audience, but the audience could immediately identify with his situation and the eagerness to do better the next time around.
In my opinion the author's message was successful. The audience seemed touched and reacted in the way the author had intended.
Some of the audience members may not have children and this "noise" may have kept them from fully understanding the depth in which it is to love a child, much less lose one.
Here's my slightly edited response:
Khalid,
Let me begin by expressing my sorrow at your loss. It is always sad
when you lose someone close; it is even worse when you lose someone so
young, with all of their life before them.
I find it remarkable you are able to get so much distance between
yourself and so private a moment, and you've done an excellent job
with your analysis. Aristotle was among the first to write about
rhetoric [find a Wikipedia artical on Aristotle's contribution to the study of Rhetoric here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhetoric_(Aristotle)], and he created a special category for situations like yours
where you celebrate the exceptional life and hold it up as an example
for others. It was very like Aristotle to look at death and loss as a
chance for the speaker and audience to do public good.
What I like about your eulogy--what the kind of speech you did is
called--is that you focused on your audience and their need to find
joy in a joyful life. One reason you were so successful is that your
comedic performance touched on moments in almost everyone's life, that
is, the shared experience of recording the joy we share in major
events. What most people don't realize is how full of pathos these
moments, like Thanksgiving, are. Not only are you full of happiness,
on some level, one also realizes how fleeting such moments are. We
take pictures to have a symbol to remind us and bring back such
happiness. In short, you made a perfect choice of topic for your
audience. You brought ethos to your topic by being Kyra's father and demonstrating how closely you held the relationship with Leila. Since
part of ethos, that is, your credibility, deals with your audience
being able to relate to you, your actions, and your feelings and being
able to see themselves in you, both your situation and your
presentation of it resonated with your audience.
Artistotle also wrote about the notion of catharsis, that is, watching
another perform, identifying with the performer, and then getting to
feel because the performer feels. Catharsis is one reason we enjoy
football games, movies which make you laugh or cry, comedy, and drama. Catharsis happens most readily when your audience wants to feel with you and get their emotions to the surface, and it's one major way that ethos and pathos work together to make the sum of their appeals more than their parts. The message you constructed, your ethos, and the pathos inherent in the situation all combined to do with a good eulogy should: get the
audience to purge their own grief, get the audience to reflect on
their own lives, bring the community together for mutual support in a
time of great stress, and do it all by reflecting on the life you come
together to celebrate.
Finally, I don't want you to underestimate the value of logos in your
situation. There is a logic to how and why people feel, and you
tapped into this logic. You did it by presenting information from
your own life to which people could relate. Anytime you use
communication to express emotion, you have to place the emotions in a
context of words and make them more abstract and logical than emotions
ever are without the context of words. Such acts of putting how you feel into words helps you make sense out of such high emotions as
the loss of someone whom you had come to regard as a daughter; but, equally important, your having to frame how you feel provides a logical framework your audience can use to make sense out of the situation for themselves. This is one of the most powerful uses for logos, and it's one reason we tell stories about our lives, that is, to help us better understand them by putting into words.
Whenever my students go to a funeral, I tell them two things: 1)
create situations where you and others can tell stories about the life
and the loss; and, 2) remember to touch base with those at the funeral
in the weeks and months to come. So often, folks see the funeral as
a ritual which allows the community to move beyond loss and grief, but grief doesn't end as you walk away from a grave; it is only beginning. It is wonderful to have friends and family around during those the first days and week after a loss, but it's more important to be there over the next weeks and months.
With your permission, I'd like to post your analysis on the class blog
along with my response, both because it is an excellent example of a
well done analysis and because it provides a teaching opportunity to
present how the genre of the eulogy works.
Steve
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